How much protein should a 78-year-old male have in his daily diet?
Without knowing height, structure, activities, goals and exercise regimen, I’ll say no less than 100 grams from mixed sources.
You might be interested in our Bomber Blend protein. I’m lost without it for convenience and low appetite, musclebuilding quality and likability.
dd
I’m about 275 lbs and want to chop 50 off of that by tackling the mid section while strengthening the core muscles while not bothering a recovering herniated L4. Do you have any cable exercises that you can recommend that I can start with?
Glad to hear the recovery progress is going well. I hope to have my back surgery in the next few months, same area involving three discs that need to be relieved of nerve blockage.
I don’t have the weight problem, but assure you you’ll be able to attend to that by increasing your activity (cycle and whatever exercises are possible regularly — daily) to help raise the metabolism and by right eating. You need discipline in eating and the right combination of foods (nutrients) to suit you — we’re all different. I like high protein, medium good fat and medium healthy carbs.
I go to a gym; after surgery I’ll roam the gym floor and select by sampling the various machine exercises that do not adversely load the lower back. There are a bunch: dip machine, pulldowns with a variety of grips, seated back row, certain Hammer Strength back or chest machine, pushdowns. Any of these, if approached carefully (body positioning, improvised body support, light weight, modified range of motion, extreme focus), will serve to build and rebuild the body’s muscular system and structure. They make me happy and keep me strong and sane.
Slowly, surely, playfully and without pressure or doubt or anxiety you will sort out the worthy task before you.
Go… Godspeed… Dave
Is there something natural that you may know about that will suppress lower back pain, as well as some back exercises to help as well? I’m 6′, 259 pounds and need to get to around 205-210.
The first thing you’ve got to attend is the excess bodyweight. While perhaps not the root of your problem, it is certainly a major contributing factor. It’s gotta go or your problems will worsen. This is accomplished, as you well know, by exercise and correct eating habits.
Without medical attention, you’re limited to the over-the-counter painkillers like Tylenol and Aleve, and anti-inflammatory products like Advil and aspirin. These will help to a degree.
Bottom line, you lower the stress on your back and your entire system as you lower your bodyweight. It’s a wonderful thing if you or your spouse are great food-makers, but you must take strong and deliberate steps to drop the weight and build the body’s muscular system.
Discipline and perseverance and smart thinking are the tools. Everything will improve as you get in shape: energy, health, strength, endurance, diminishing of pain and of back-overload, attitude and behavior.
I suggest you train in a gym where a stationary bike is available for aerobics (four 20-minute sessions of various intensities a week) and 45-60 minute weight workouts three days a week. Nothing overhead, light weight (to moderate weight, in time) for reps in the 8,10,12 range, entire body with an ear to your low-back pain signals.
Take your time to develop your routine as you feel your way around the gym and recall your past workouts and condition your mind and body. Always warm up. Read my last newsletter for the training approach.
You might view our forum… or join in… a smart and friendly bunch.
Train hard and always… God’s Might… Dave
I’m planning to enter a bodybuilding contest and have a few questions. First, I don’t know how to deal with the stage.
Nothing to it. It’s like jumping off a cliff. Once you’re in midair it becomes fun and you forget the fright and the audience becomes your friend. They want to like you. Help them by liking them. Let that be evident in your expressions, your aura, your spirits, your posing through which you speak. Be happy you’re there, on stage with them for the joy of it. Doubt and fear and dread have an odor about them… they turn an audience off… be prepared.
- Is waxing as dreadful and painful as it looks?
Probably, and expensive and sort of embarrassing.
I never knew anyone who waxed in my day. Shave with a barber’s electric clippers for the bulk of the body hair and use a safety razor or average electric shaver to get very close shave. I use a barber’s electric clippers with fine cutting teeth… Perfect.
What can I do to “ignore” the crowd and perform my posing routine at the stage without feeling shy?
You want to choose your exercises wisely — those that accentuate your strong points and hide your weak points — and you want to practice them often with a purposeful mind and discovered enjoyment. Have a pal whom you can trust and who has an eye for muscle and performance help you, assess and encourage you. Practice, practice, practice, so the poses are alive and enthusiastic, automatic but not robotic; so they flow and complement each other, never halted, never doubtful. You are entertaining the audience; work and smile and be real — with real excitement and confidence (not arrogance).
While you rehearse and prepare your posing routine, visualize, imagine, your backstage moments prior to your stage appearance, your name being announced and your appearance. And, too, visualize your routine before the crowd. Always up, always successful, never unsure or dispirited. Purposeful visualizing will put you there before you get there and it’s good, it’s great. Don’t become breathless backstage, be warmed up, lightly oiled and relaxed as possible — certain as possible. Three deep breaths and you’re on your way when they call out your name and favorite gym location.
- What did you do to keep focused in your training and diet when things got tough?
Be strong. That’s the easy part. Never give in. Never, never, never give in.
- What is it like to be Mr. Universe? That’s just what I want to be.
There’s a lot of work and compromise and challenge in preparation and you hope that in itself is a worthy investment in your character and spirit. To win is exciting, confusing, noisy and uplifting to a tired body, mind and soul. The greatest thing about winning is not losing.
There’s more to it than that: gratifying, fulfilling, stunning, cool, large… That was in my day 42 years ago.
Have fun… Hoist the iron… Godspeed
What is the best arm building routine for women? I want to lead a group exercise class for adult women.
Were I you I’d train just as a man does to develop his physique.
My favorite biceps exercises are standing barbell curls, seated dumbbell alternate curls and low-incline curls. Choose two and perform 4 sets X 6 to 10 reps, mixed according to weight used.
Triceps favorites are lying and overhead triceps extensions, dips and various versions of pulley pushdowns. Choose two for 4 x 10 to 12 + reps.
Intensity and focus are most important. Work arms twice a week and once a week according to fatigue and response, other workouts which stimulate bis and tris and commonsense.
Work forearms with wrist curls and reverse curls once a week, 3 sets x 8-10 reps if you care a lot. Also, supersetting bis and tris are the way to go. I’ve practiced this methodology forever.
Depending on the group size and the receptiveness, you might encourage them to warm up, gain focus and add to their conditioning and learning by doing five minutes of planks, side planks, bridges and bent-leg leg-raises –1 set of maximum. Repeat if popular.
With dumbbells, you can do standing curls and alternate curls for biceps, and overhead dumbbell triceps extensions for triceps. Modified floor pushups are a good triceps exercise, which includes shoulder, chest and back muscle engagement as well.
A lot of your instruction success depends on the trainees before you — level of understanding, condition, motivation, willingness and ability to listen and learn. How you approach them and what you offer them is also dependent upon theses factors as well.
Consider starting with two sets of 10-12 reps of any four exercise (standing biceps curl, alternate curl / pushups, overhead triceps extension), in that order.
Development depends on consistency in training and intensity in training. Only with these disciplines will progress be made.
Progress from light to heavy as equipment allows. Keep focused on the work and muscles involved, keep a smart pace to keep interest and energy and warmth high.
This is a start. Dips, chins and floor pushups are possibles for the toughies — a challenge.
Encourage them to eat right for real results.
Have fun… God’s Might… dave
I broke my toe in a fall the other day. Dumb! Will I be able to work out soon?
I suspect you’ll be back to hobbling about before too long (less than a week) and be able to devise a routine that is suitable and even aggressive.
The pain and instability is high at first and in these long days we become impatient and testy, and finally adapt.
Careful moving about will be good therapy for the injury. All sorts of specific-muscle machines will gain your interest and you’ll put your commonsense to work and discover training from a creative viewpoint.
Train hard, eat right and be strong. God’s might… Dave
Could you make some suggestions on my workout routine? A typical week: 2 weight lifting sessions and three or four aerobic. I finish my routine with 200 crunches and then stretching. Here are my exercises:
1. Flat bench 3 sets 8-10 reps
2. Incline bench 3 sets 8-10 reps.
3. Wide grip Lat pull down 2 sets 8-10 reps.
4. Cybex Seated row 2 sets 8-10.
5. Cybex Back extension machine 2 sets 10 reps.
6. Cybex torso rotation seated 2 sets 10 reps.
7. Cybex Hip Abduction Leg machine (outside)
8. Cybex Hip Abduction Leg machine (Inside)
9 Abs - knees to chest - extend legs
10. Cybex Fly machine 2 sets 8-10 reps
11 Curls (Cybex pulley) 2 sets 8-10 reps
12 Dips 2 sets max
13 Dumbbell shoulder press (free weights) 2 sets 10 reps
14 Squats (Cybex Rack) 2 sets 10 reps
15 Wrist Curls barbell 2 sets max
16 Incline sit ups max 3 sets
Your collection of exercises is legitimate and worthy and will serve you well. Performing them in the prescribed sequence provides fitness and health, but can be tedious and lacking the creativity that excites one’s training. You might want to juggle and rearrange them to be more fulfilling, specific and effective.
You are currently doing some 35 sets of 8 to 10 reps, a workout of sufficient (some would say excessive) input. Maintaining the 30 to 35 set input, here’s a suggestion for a different workout approach. I have outlined two separate routines, Day 1 and Day 2, to be performed alternately (80-90% max on all lifts). Fewer sets, more focus and gradient muscle intensity.
Crunches and leg raises to warm up or to finish, your choice, but let me add that I’ve discontinued my excessive crunch workouts in favor of planks and other core training exercises.
Day 1) Upper Body
Flat bench press (3-4 sets x 12, 10, 8 reps) — don’t overload to point of risk — exercise muscle, forget excessive power — works front delt, tris and some chest
Dumbbell incline - 60 degree (3-4 x 10, 8, 6) — Go — safer movement, great for delts, upper chest, some tris
Widegrip pulldown (3-4 sets x 12, 10, 8 reps) Lats, upper back, some bis
Seated lat row (3-4 sets x 12, 10, 8 reps) Lats, back, some bis)
Standing, bentover lateral raise (3-4 sets x 8-10 reps) shoulders
Side arm lateral raise (3-4 sets x 8-10 reps) rear delts and upper back
Day 2) Arms and Legs
Wrist curls for warm-up (3×12-14)
Standing barbell curl supersetted with freehand or machine dips (3-4 sets x 8-10 reps bis, 12-15 tris)
Seated dumbbell alternate curls supersetted with pulley pushdowns (3-4 sets x 8-10 reps bis, 12-15 tris)
(Works bis and tris and related upper body muscle with vigorous non-cheating thrusting)
Leg extensions (3 x 10 -12)
Leg curls (3 x 8,10,12)
Leg press (or squat if able) (3 x 12-15)
Calf work of your choice
Light deadlifts (3×10) or hyperextensions (3×10-15) should be added once a week along the way — with midsection or on leg day
This is a good routine (to be amended by you if there are exercise preferences) for your next 8-week cycle. The outline can then be altered to suit your next goals or needs.
Lift with focus on muscle-exercise engagement, develop good form based on your freedom of muscular expression and muscle recruitment (not law) and choose a repetition pace that suits your personality (usually matches the speed you drive the freeways). I don’t dawdle.
This routine is musclebuilding specific. The extended sets enable and cause you to get more involved with the exercise and the muscle action and provide greater overload. This can become a neat training attitude modification (head trip), and it can cause you some nifty increased achyness. This is good unless you hate it or it’s an indication of injury. I don’t want you to injure yourself.
Fuel yourself prior to and feed yourself after your training.
Train hard and eat right and have fun and stay health, be strong and live long…
Go… Godspeed… Dave
I was wondering if you recommend training to failure? I know that there are a number of bodybuilders who recommend training to failure as well as doing forced reps and negatives. However, there are other bodybuilders who say never train to failure. I was wondering what your opinion was.
I never suggest forced reps and negative reps. The joints will pay heavily for this type of treatment.
As a weight trainer seeking strength, health, fitness and appealing muscle tone, train regularly and vigorously in the 75-percent-max exertion range and eat right. If you get the urge and you’re sensible, blast it once in a while — a day, a week, a set, a rep — for fun and effect and understanding.
As a lifter with greater muscle and strength goals, train more intensely with a mix of 80-, 90- and 100-percent maximum input according to your responses (strength, energy, endurance, muscle size, shape and hardness — fatigue and overtraining).
Of course, age and general health are important factors. Add nutrition, rest, lifestyle and attitude to the list.
Go… Godspeed… dave
About a year ago I got interested in power lifting. I have a contest coming up next month — what can I do to make the joint pain go away ASAP?
Abused joints go with the territory.
I’ll be blunt: Go back to healthy musclebuilding with a less-intense powerlifting contribution to your training scheme. That’s what I’ve done over the years, a fulfilling and complementary and reasonably safe combination.
As long as you power lift you will endanger your body, regularly over-maxing joints, ligaments and tendons in same ways with same exercises without building muscle balance through thoughtful and extended exercise programs. Gets worse; ask any legit powerlifter.
Wrap your joints, keep inflammation at a minimum by icing and taking over-the-counter meds and resting, eliminate exercises that pointedly aggravate tender regions, and develop an intelligent plan to build supportive muscles. Eat right as nutrition is vital to structure strength and repair.
Try Joint Connection — could help a bit. Also Omega 3 fish oil.
Suggestion: Laree is a student of training injury and body pain and is presenting information of recently developing exercise applications for injury repair and prevention and muscle-balancing. Check out her commentary for a long read on corrective exercise, nothing ASAP about it, however.
Go… Godspeed… Dave
I recently ordered Dr. Dipasquale’s Metabolic Diet for bodybuilders. The claim is that it is a more of a customizable approach to the Anabolic Diet that he created in the early ’90s. The basic premise is extremely low carbs for 5 days followed by 2 days of carb loading. I’ve never tried such a low carb diet before. I was wondering what your thoughts are.
Long before reading Di Pasquale’s Metabolic Diet — as a student of Muscle Beach — I followed the low carb–high protein–medium fat eating plan. Have, in fact, all my training life followed the same scheme. It works the best for me and all those I know: Lou F, Frank Z, Arnold.
The weekend carbo loading does the trick when young and developing. My book, Your Body Revival, speaks of this plan as having it’s origins in “the Dungeon” — Muscle Beach Gym of the ’60s.
You’ve got to hold onto the bulk, use it to train hard while enjoying the metabolic environment and not look for the hardness for months, years, of invested time. Today’s lifters are promised faster and better results and are often disappointed to the point of quitting.
I substitute compromised carb calories with mostly protein calories and some good fat calories (EFAs). I carry an extra five or so pounds for health, power and energy/endurance. Milk products seem to be my only substantial source of carbs.
Try Bomber Blend as a superior protein intake without carbs — pre and post workout, breakfast, supplementary meals or added feedings. Excellent product and very well priced as an inexpensive food (some of my best advice…).
Thanks for reading and enjoying and supporting.
God’s speed… Dave
Some of us have always been “twigs,” i.e. undermuscled kids who grew up to be skinny, undermuscled adults. I was told to eat a lot of protein and lift heavy weights. Well, this definitely does work, but there is also an inevitable bulking up of stomach fat to go with it. So I started doing lots of cardio and cutting back on the calories, which was the advice on how to lose fat.
As I lost the stomach fat, I seemed to lose my muscle at an identical rate. It seems like I am doomed to one of two choices: 1) Get bigger muscles and have a gut, or 2) Have a flat stomach and be overly skinny. I am 34 and don’t have great genetics, maybe good muscles and a six pack is just something beyond my potential. Do you have any thoughts, or is that just how the human body works?
You’ve been through it; this way, that way and back again. I’d say the genetics are a factor, but you must not let them absolutely define your training. Like me saying I’m old and settling for old-guy goals and results. Not exactly inspiring.
I’d stay with the high protein (red meat and whey protein, eggs, poultry and fish), low carb (tons of salad, some fruit and the carbs you get in milk products, no refined sugar) and medium good fat (no fried food, but add EFAs).
Find a bodyweight that is 5 to 10 pounds over your lean weight that is acceptable. This added weight is functional, a valuable tool needed for lifting power and training energy and endurance. You will also need to realize and agree this is for long-term muscular growth, the maintenance of a metabolic environment in your system. The attention to daily muscular definition will diminish sufficiently to allow you freedom to train without excessive frustration.
Review your training scheme and note content, intensity, regularity, sensible passion, rest, stress and so forth. No time to be mean or become an obsessed musclehead, but what needs rethinking? Practice just enough HIIT cardio to get by and invest time saved in a vigorous core training program which contributes to cardio input. Blast the weights during your allotted workout time.
Routine suggestions are in articles periodically and within the web page content or Brother Iron Sister Steel.
This is my general training regimen. I can see and feel improvement taking place in various ways — strength, shape, density, skin tone, muscle thickness, harness beneath the surface. When I get the urge not too often, it’s tuna and water, salads and free form amino acids for the time it takes to satisfy my interest. Then, back to building.
You said: Now I am 150 lbs., and back to the 10 percent body fat I started with. Granted I gained approx. 8-10 lbs. of muscle over 2 years, but it really does not seem noticeable.
This is the good stuff, right here. You’re about 35. You have 10 prime growth years ahead and none will disappoint you — if you’re smart minded and if your good health continues — for another 25 years. Dings and pings of age are a drag, but they are easier and less noticeable and delayed when you work out.
I think you get the picture. Perseverance, guts and the basics and presto, a well-traveled lifetime later.
God’s speed and strength… Dave
I have pain in my right shoulder when I do side laterals, but not when I do them on a seated lat raise machine where your elbows press against pads. I notice that when I do lateral raises my right trap contracts very early as I raise my arm and pulls my shoulder joint backwards. My left trap stays put and only contracts when my arm passes above parallel to the floor. Never any pain on the left side unlike the right, yet on the seated lat machine no pain on either side. 53 yrs old and lots of abuse on the shoulder joints over the years. What is your opinion of the seated lat raise machine and why no pain?
Could be a tear in a ligament that straps the rotator in place. My shoulder/trap action is similar and I have a separated supraspinatus (along the ridge of trap muscle and its ligament straps over the shoulder cuff for stability and movement). I didn’t catch mine in time and it retreated to mid-back and deteriorated. Goodbye nearly 15 years ago; open operation by a top guy didn’t fix it. Big training compromise; pressing is the pits, but I manage to stimulate, burn and pump for muscle retention.
I do one-arm laterals while holding on to a rack with the free hand and leaning outward for position advantage - lateral can be done from the front of body or from behind. Two-hand laterals are funky — left works, right doesn’t.
I don’t like the machine you refer to, hurts the forearms.
Might be worth considering trigger point therapy also. Sometimes the muscle refuses to move over an area with inflammation, aka adhesion.
Another thing, if not a tear, it might be muscle lost memory of action, a neural transmission problem, and you need application of Feldenkrais procedures — reminds muscle of its pattern and initiates re-firing — not voodoo.
I’m not the alternative medicine type, but this stuff works where needed.
Gotta go… DD
What is your feeling on elastic band training instead of free weights? I have an idea, but would like to hear from the horse’s mouth.
Not as good as iron, but better than nothing.
I’ve watched Laree use bands for a few exercises — there are some things in the rehab world especially where they work better than weights.
Very useful for people who travel a lot; stuff one in the luggage rather than skipping the workouts, in combination with pushups and bodyweight squats… quite useful.
I have most success using the bands attached to a doorway and doing giant sets non-stop, making up the workout as I go along, feeling the pump and burn and muscles working collectively — pulling, pushing, extending laterally, changing body positions and locations and changing hands every devised set of 8, 10, 12 reps.
You can reasonably simulate some 20 different dumbbell or cable movements. I’ve done this manner of training for 20 to 30 minutes virtually nonstop and was soaked and pumped and agreeably exhausted afterwards. No gym, just me, the bands and the hotel room and desire to blast it.
Think less, feel more… Be creative… go… Godspeed… Davy D
I’m writing to ask your advice on how to kick the alcohol habit. I’ve become a “functional drunk.”
Tough summary in those two words.
I drank myself to near-death congestive heart failure (CHF) over 25 years ago. Emergency room and hospital stay for three week for starters. Lost everything drinking a half-gallon of vodka a day for years, and am paying another price with the congestive heart failure still today — it doesn’t go away even after the alcohol is gone.
Long road… never drank or did recreational drugs after my ‘83 ER experience.
Simultaneously (1983) my interest in Jesus Christ was revived — a Bible-believing Christian since 1950 — and I’ve leaned on Him ever since for all things. I’m a bum. The Lord is my rock.
Some people hate to hear that faith stuff. Recovery was not guts and discipline by my own hands. Shrinks and AA serve a purpose, though I’ve no experience with either.
I always trained except for three months post-CHF hospitalization. Heavy metal = good anchor.
Go… Godspeed… Dave
Will twice per day split sessions, same body part, different routine, AM-PM, help or hurt me?
You don’t want to burn out a good and responsive machine. At 26 you can successfully apply such a strategy before a contest or a special occasion, but at 56 you want to be careful with your resources: joints, muscles, endurance and resistance, internal system and central nervous system, motivation, attitude, spirit.
Try it for a month and decide it’s value. If I had to guess, I’ll go with nix on that, though.
Go… God’s Wisdom… Dave
What is straight-arm dumbbell pullover?
Lie on a bench with your head supported at its end.
Hold a dumbbell straight overhead, elbows purposely unbent with your palms against the inner plate, allowing the weight to hang and have loose range of motion.
With unbent arms, lower the weight behind the head to a body-parallel position, as if reaching for the far wall.
Pause briefly to note muscle extension and action, and return to the overhead starting position.
Focus, medium pace, moderate weight, 3 to 4 sets of 10 to 12 reps twice weekly on any alternate days.
Involves major lats and serratus, and minor pecs, bis and tris… feel good exercise, restores breathing, enhances rib cage, provides health and strength to shoulder rotation unless overdone.
Be prepared for initial soreness. As you become familiar with and accustom to the exercise, you might enjoy starting light with high reps and go heavier set by set with descending reps — 15, 12, 10, 8, 6 rep variation.
Perfect part-two of most any superset: dumbbell incline plus pullover, bench press plus pullover, seated lat row and pullover, squat and pullover.
That’s about it… Go… Godspeed… Dave
